Category: Birthdays

was born New York City on this date in 1894.

Visit the Norman Rockwell Museum.

… of Tom Smothers. He’s 68.

… of Graham Nash. The Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash (or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) is 63.

… of Farrah Fawcett. Charlie’s Angel is 58.

… of Christie Brinkley. She’s 51.

… of Gene Hackman. The Oscar-winning actor is 75. He won Best Actor for The French Connection and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Unforgiven. He has received three other nominations.

… of Dick Cheney. The Vice President is 64.

… of Phil Collins. The singer is 54.

… of Katharine Ross. Mrs. Robinson’s daughter is (gasp!) 65. (Mrs. Robinson, Anne Bancroft, turned 73 last September.)

… of Tom Selleck. Thomas Magnum is 60.

… of Oprah Winfrey. She’s 51.

… of Judy Norton Taylor. Mary Ellen Walton is 47. (Which makes her older than Patricia Neal was when playing the mother in the original Walton film, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.)

better known as W.C. Fields, was born in Philadelphia on this date in 1880 or 1889.

A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake–which I also keep handy.

I never vote for anyone; I always vote against.

Last week, I went to Philadelphia, but it was closed.

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.

A woman drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.

Anyone who hates children and animals can’t be all bad.

I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison.

I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.

Some things are better than sex, and some are worse, but there’s nothing exactly like it.

There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.

(When “caught” reading a Bible) “Just looking for loopholes.”

Fields died on Christmas Day, 1946.

… of Alan Alda. Hawkeye is 69 today, just three days after being nominated for his first Oscar for his portrayal of Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster in The Aviator.

From The Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the birthday of cartoonist, novelist and playwright Jules Feiffer, born in the Bronx (1929). He said of his childhood, “The only thing I wanted to be was grown up. Because I was a terrible flop as a child. You cannot be a successful boy in America if you cannot throw or catch a ball.” He decided early on that he wanted to be a comic strip artist, and when he was a teenager, he showed his work to the cartoonist Will Eisner, and Eisner gave him a job. Feiffer said, “[It was] ten dollars a week part-time—erasing pages, filling in blanks, and dreaming great dreams.”

But he was drafted in 1951, and he did not take well to the army. He said, “I was treated with open contempt by one form of authority or the other in the army on a 24-hour basis.” The experience inspired him to write a bitterly cynical cartoon strip about a four-year-old boy who is drafted by mistake. He tried to sell the strip to a variety of major newspapers, but nobody would buy it. So he finally turned to a new weekly newspaper in his neighborhood called The Village Voice. Over the next decade, the Village Voice became nationally prominent, and Feiffer’s cartoons became nationally syndicated.

His strip in the Village Voice was one of the first cartoon strips to deal with adult themes such as sex, politics, and psychiatry. For most of his career, he has drawn and written all of his work in Central Park, which he considers his office.

is 80 years old today.

Newman has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar eight times, winning for The Color of Money in 1986, but not for Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Absence of Malice, The Verdict, or Nobody’s Fool. He was also nominated for the Best Supporting Actor for Road to Perdition (at age 78).

… of Mariska Hargitay. Jayne Mansfield’s daughter is 41. (Mariska was in the car when her mother was killed in 1967.) Ms. Hargitay plays Detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

… of Jean Stapleton. Edith Bunker is 82.

… of Tippi Hedren. The actress in The Birds is 75. As it’s her birthday NewMexiKen won’t say how bad she was in that role.

… of Phil Everly. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (with older brother Don) is 66.

… of Shelley Fabares. Donna Reed’s television daughter is 61.

… of Desi Arnaz Jr. Little Ricky is 52.

… of Katey Sagal. The Married…With Children mom is 48.

… of Drea de Matteo. The actress who was whacked on The Sopranos last season is 32.

Paul Cezanne was born on this date in 1839.

… of Kevin Costner. Costner won the Oscars for Diretor and Best Picture for Dances With Wolves and was nominated for the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Lt. John Dunbar. He’s 50 today.

It’s also the birthday of Cary Grant (Archibald Alexander Leach, 1904-1986) and Danny Kaye (David Daniel Kaminski, 1913-1987).

… of Bart Starr. The hall-of-fame quarterback is 71.

… of Bob Denver. Gilligan (and Maynard Krebs) is 70.

… of Dick Enberg. The sportscaster is 70 (oh, my!).

… of Joan Baez. The singer is 64.

… of Jimmy Page. The Led Zeppelin rocker is 61.

… of Crystal Gayle. Loretta Lynn’s little sister is 54.

… of Dave Matthews. He’s 38.

… of Stephen Hawking. The physicist and author is 63.

… of newscasters Sander Vanocur (77) and Charles Osgood (72).

… of Shirley Bassey. The singer of “Goldfinger” is 68.

… of Bob Eubanks. “The Newlywed Game” emcee is 67.

was born on this date in 1926.

Soupy prospered as a Detroit and then ABC television comedian in the 50s and 60s. NewMexiKen remembers Soupy for the noontime Lunch with Soupy Sales on WXYZ-TV, along with White Fang and Black Tooth, Pookie the Worm, and the Soupy Shuffle. Great stuff.

… of Boo Radley. Robert Duval is 74.

… of Annie Hall. Diane Keaton is 59.

… of Jane Wyman. The Oscar-winning first Mrs. Reagan is 91.

… of Floyd Patterson. The former heavyweight champion is 70.

… of Dyan Cannon. The actress and Lakers fan is 68.

… of Julia Ormond. Guinevere or Sabrina, take your pick, is 40.

… of George Martin. The man who produced The Beatles’ records is 79.

… of Dabney Coleman. Franklin M. Hart Jr. is 73 (that’s the boss in Nine To Five).

… of Bobby Hull. The hockey hall-of-famer is 66.

… of Stephen Stills. The rock and roll hall-of-famer is 60.

… of Victoria Principal. Pamela Barnes Ewing (Dallas) is 59.

… of Mel Gibson. Old Blood and Guts is 49.

… of J.D. Salinger. The reclusive author of Catcher in the Rye is 86.

… of Country Joe McDonald. Give me an “F”… He’s 63.

… of Grandmaster Flash. The rapper is 47.

Also born on New Year’s Day:

Betsy Ross in 1752.

William Fox (of Fox Pictures) in 1879.

“Wild Bill” Donovan in 1883. Donovan directed the American Office of Strategic Service during World War II, precursor to the CIA.

J. Edgar Hoover, in 1895.

Barry Goldwater in 1909.

… of Anthony Hopkins. The Oscar winner is 67. Hopkins has been nominated for Best Actor three times, winning for The Silence of the Lambs. He was also nominated as Best Supporting Actor for Amistad.

… of Tim Considine. Spin is 64. Considine played the soldier slapped by General Patton in the film Patton.

… of Ben Kingsley. The Oscar winner is 61. He won Best Actor for his portrayal of Gandhi. He was also nominated for Best Actor for House of Sand and Fog and twice for Best Supporting Actor.

… of Donna Summer. The Bad Girl is 56.

… of Bebe Neuwirth. Lilith is 46. Ms. Neuwirth won the Emmy twice for this role on Cheers.

… of Bo Diddley. “One of the most original and fertile rhythmic intelligences of our time,” the Rock Hall of Famer is 76.

… of Russ Tamblyn. Riff is 70.

… of Sandy Koufax. The most dominant pitcher in the game in the early 1960s, the man who threw four no-hitters including a perfect games is 69.

… of Paul (Noel actually) Stookey. Paul of Peter, Paul & Mary is 67.

… of Fred Ward. The actor (Gus Grissom in The Right Stuff) is 62.

… of Monkees Michael Nesmith (62) and Davy Jones (59).

… of Patti Smith. Punk rock’s poet laureate is 58.

… of Matt Lauer. The Today show host is 47.

Politician Al Smith (he lost to Herbert Hoover in 1928) was born on this date in 1873.

Albert Einstein was born on this date in 1880.

… of Scotty Moore. Elvis Presley’s guitarist for 14 years is 72.

… of John Amos. Adm. Percy Fitzwallace (West Wing), Toby (Kunta Kinte as adult) and J.J.’s father (Good Times) is 63.

… of Cokie Roberts. The daughter of Hale and Lindy Boggs is 61.

… of Gérard Depardieu. The actor who has played more famous characters than even Charlton Heston (Cyrano De Bergerac, Jean de Florette, Christopher Columbus, Honoré de Balzac, Le Comte de Monte Cristo, Porthos, Auguste Rodin, Franco, Danton) is 56.

… of Montgomery Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner and Reverend Lovejoy. Harry Shearer is 61.

… of Steve Carlton. Lefty is 60.

… of Diane Sawyer. She’s 59.